I keep a simple profile that I rarely log into just so people can’t hassle me about not having one.

Eben went on to suggest that with such technologies as tiny home servers, we should be considering open source (free as in freedom variety,) social networking software that allows us to own our data by moving it out of the cloud and back to our homes. It’s not a stretch to consider moving that data to for-hire web hosting services, if you’re not comfortable running something at home (hosted blogs at WordPress and Typepad come to mind as examples,) but there’s really little good reason to give Facebook or MySpace or Google a monopoly on housing your personal data, or making unchallenged decisions about what they deem private or public when it comes to your data.

To that end, a few computer science students took up his challenge to build a software stack. They’re bootstrapping it over at http://joindiaspora.com and hope to spend this summer coding instead of interning. They’ve got a fair amount of us cheering them on, and while the highways are littered with the wrecks of open social networks that haven’t taken off (or are still slipping,) there is little reason to believe that we cannot achieve a credible open source, user-controlled alternative to Facebook.

Take a look – don’t just sit around expecting to be entertained (or exploited,) do something about it. :)

FB does need to watch out, however, lest they become the next MySpace. The “influentials” are clearly looking for something better, and soon enough they’ll find it. Orkut anyone?

Except my pals all tag me in their pictures, so I kind of am part of it anyway.

So much for that.

“You are not Facebook’s customer. You are the product that they sell to their real customers – advertisers. Forget this at your peril.”

http://twitter.com/greenbes/statuses/13136044037

also.

“The addition of these new pages mean that certain parts of your profile, “including your current city, hometown, education and work, and likes and interests” will now be transformed into “connections,” meaning that they will be shared publicly. If you don’t want these parts of your profile to be made public, your only option is to delete them.” http://bit.ly/cKLPBN

MORPHEUS
I was a prototype for Echelon IV. My instructions are to amuse visitors with information about themselves.
JC DENTON
I don’t see anything amusing about spying on people.
MORPHEUS
Human beings feel pleasure when they are watched. I have recorded their smiles as I tell them who they are.
JC DENTON
Some people just don’t understand the dangers of indiscriminate surveillance.
MORPHEUS
The need to be observed and understood was once satisfied by God. Now we can implement the same functionality with data-mining algorithms.
JC DENTON
Electronic surveillance hardly inspired reverence. Perhaps fear and obedience, but not reverence.
MORPHEUS
God and the gods were apparitions of observation, judgment, and punishment. Other sentiments toward them were secondary.
JC DENTON
No one will ever worship a software entity peering at them through a camera.
MORPHEUS
The human organism always worships. First it was the gods, then it was fame (the observation and judgment of others), next it will be the self-aware systems you have built to realize truly omnipresent observation and judgment.
JC DENTON
You underestimate humankind’s love of freedom.
MORPHEUS
The individual desires judgment. Without that desire, the cohesion of groups is impossible, and so is civilization. The human being created civilization not because of a willingness but because of a need to be assimilated into higher orders of structure and meaning. God was a dream of good government. You will soon have your God, and you will make it with your own hands.

At our library we’ve printed out articles from Wired and other sites explaining how to set your privacy settings as high as you like.

At least once a day someone, teenagers to full-grown adults, will remark how they had no idea how much of their data was being shared. Frightening stuff.

I started mine deleting last week, one more week to go before it’s actually gone.

FB does need to watch out, however, lest they become the next MySpace. The “influentials” are clearly looking for something better, and soon enough they’ll find it. Orkut anyone?

As much fun as Orkut was, there’s no point exchanging FB for another service with the same structure, because the same structure will inevitably lead to the same structural problems.

Any time there’s a free service financed through advertising, as the tweet says, you’re not their customer, you’re their product.

Personally I’m hoping for a peer-to-peer social network (mine or somebody else’s), but we’ll see what happens.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it totally sucks, but it’s not (yet) reason to quit FB, for me at least.

Easiest option to forget about “connections” is to put the text in Notes that only friends can see.

Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t care about, nor understand the importance of privacy. He proves it though his actions and his own words.

Such a shame. Yet another evil nerd.

I don’t trust Zuckyburger either!

Waaay tooo pompous!

Thought it was creepy from the beginning (back when is was just a college thing)!

Never will join!

People are sheeple, insecure, need attention, affirmation.

Granted, it can be good to keep in touch with buddies/family, I get that, fine.

But, there are other means besides Facebook.

The value of a relationship doesn’t change by being facebook “friends.”

It will be irrelevant in 5 years anyhow. Communication will only become more and more instantaneous and easy. There will be no need to be associated with single web-portal.

For you Facebook freaks out there, enjoy it while it lasts…

Peace.

-Anonymous (just the way I like it)

Is Zuckerberg evil, nor understand the importance of privacy? Or is he just playing at the game of Market Principles? If you look at that graph and bkad’s insightful statement regarding the group dynamic at work with all his/her friends belonging and the social pariah one becomes in not participating, it all reflects more on human nature than evil. Everyone wants to belong, at any cost, and people like Zuckerberg are ready to exploit it( hey, another human trait!).

The Facebook phenomenon reminds me of Apple’s success in building a closed platform, ruled with an iron fist. The masses just can’t get enough.

Anyway, I’ve created a group called “Anything PRIVATE shall never be made PUBLIC”, in hopes to generate enough support to lobby Facebook to amend its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and the Privacy Policy in a simple, clear way that would prevent any future privacy infractions from ever occuring.

Check it out here, if interested:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=122212854462445

I think the first step is a “anything private shall never be made public”-esque rule, and the next step is to work backwards and plug the holes that have been opened over the years.

Or in my case, Facebook did it for me–wiping my profile clean of anything other than my name and DOB.

Or to put it another way, since Facebook makes it much easier for you to find and connect with a long lost friend or family member on the Internet, do you really care all that much that the ads on the sidebar were precisely targeted at you? You can see the majority’s answer to that question in this graph.

Then it was Facebook, and I relented, BUT with the caveat that I used a fake name and fake photos. So, am I on Facebook or not? Hmmmmm. . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDHb4wewAIQ

Laura